Natsu's Secret
by fatcatbeatrice
Summary: Natsu has a Secret 2 ocs, some ooc, rated for mild language, oneshot


AN: Contains an OC (2 actually) and some OOC I wrote this for my friend's b-day, first fairy tail fanfic~ Please enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail, never have, and never will. Bruce and the driver are MINE tho! I will take over the world with them! MUWAHAHAHAHA

Natsu had a secret. He didn't want to tell anyone his secret because he was afraid of being made fun of for it. And, he had to keep up his reputation as a tough guy. Only Happy knew, not Lucy, Erza, Gray, or any of the rest of Fairy Tail.

Natsu's secret was that he loved small animals. Most people at least have a liking for something small and cute, but Natsu _absolutely loved _them. He would talk to them in a baby voice, cuddle them and tell them just how cute they were. He also couldn't leave a single one on the streets when he found them there.

Thanks to that he had thirteen cats, two rabbits, four birds, two hamsters and two guinea pigs crammed into his little shack. Strangely enough, the cats never attacked the other animals, but he always kept the other cages well away from the cats and locked.

When Natsu went on jobs with the team, he had a man named Bruce take care of them. Bruce was very friendly and easy-going; he lived in town. Bruce would just come over in the morning, feed the cats, put them outside, clean their litter boxes, then feed the other animals and sometimes clean their cages. He let the cats in in the evening and fed and petted them.

On this fine spring day, Natsu was walking home from the guild. Happy flew, well, happily above him. The guild had been as rowdy as ever. There had been a huge fight about who would get the last piece of cake, won of course by Erza. The things she would do for cake…

Lost in thought, Natsu soon reached his small house. Immediately cats swirled around his feet, mewing loudly. All thoughts of being walloped by Erza diminished and Natsu knelt to pet his cats, sure to greet each individually.

He first said hello to Beatrice, a light gray tabby, female of course. Next was a kitten, Frederick, who was a brown tabby. He also greeted the rest of Frederick's litter: Cassia, the tuxedo, Zeus, the darker brown tabby, Li Qi* (pronounced Lee Choo), a light brown tabby, and Shineakwa, the black kitten. He then greeted Cooper, his fluffy brown and white patched cat. Then Alexander, his orange tabby. Next was Lucy (she was named before Lucy came to the guild), the other tuxedo. Smokey was after Lucy, she was Beatrice's sister and a much darker gray tabby. Then was Snowball, a massive fluffy white cat. Then Emily Rose, a pretty, longhaired, black cat. Finally Emma, who was also black.

At last he slipped inside, bringing thirteen hungry cats with him. People often asked why, as a mage who made a good amount of money on jobs, lived in such a small house. Natsu would always dismiss them, saying that he didn't earn _that _much and that he liked where he lived.

Both were true, but also some of his money went to buying food for his pets. He filled thirteen dishes with cubed meat and then went to tend to his other animals. The rabbit's hutch was outside. Natsu put in a small salad and quickly cleaned as well as petting them. "Oh, aren't you so cute? Who are the cutest rabbits in the world? You are!" and so on… One Rabbit was gray and named Frisky and the other was brown and called Cookies.

His guinea pig and hamsters got very much the same treatment. The Guinea pigs were both white, told apart by the color of the ears. Their names were Nimble and Silky. One hamster was gray and called Kel, the other black and named Samantha.

His four birds consisted of two parakeets, a blue male named Shaw and a green female named Maddy. One female finch, Cora and one Northern Saw-Whet Owl he'd found as an owlet and raised. Her wing was injured and she could only fly for a few minutes at a time. He tethered Chetka, as he called the owl to her perch tightly, so she couldn't fly at all, before letting the other three birds out.

She had never gone after one of the little birds or small animals for that matter before, probably thanks to the fact she was raised by a human from a few days old (she was now about a year), but Natsu would take no chances. He couldn't put her in a cage because she might hurt her wings.

He quickly cleaned out the bird's cages and under Chetka's perch, before feeding Chetka three small mice. You had to feed an owl mice: that was all they could eat. The mouse contained every nutrient the owl needed. The whole mouse, too. Said mouse would be swallowed whole and later the bones and fur would come out in a pellet.

He fed the small birds to get them to return to their cages so he could let Chetka of her tether. He watched contentedly as Happy and her played airborne tag, zooming around the room. Emma jumped up on his lap, soon followed by twelve more cats vying for attention. He chuckled softly as he stroked them, enjoying the way the room thrummed with life.

* * *

Natsu was walking home a few days later when he came across a tortoise. Said tortoise was a Pet Tortoise, the only type of tortoise kept only as pets in Fiore. This little guy had his poked out when Natsu first walked up, but then pulled it into his shell. Natsu looked around for other people but saw no potential owners. _Poor guy… May as well take him home. _He thought.

Natsu watched the tortoise in his new terrarium. It had a small branch, some rocks, and a dish of water and food. The tortoise's shell was spangled with bright blues and greens; he was of a magically modified breed. The colors would glimmer and sparkle in the light.

However, the tortoise refused to come out of his shell, not even for food. Natsu told himself to be patient, and that many animals were scared in a new place. But still, it worried him.

* * *

Natsu left the tortoise the next morning with his (one could tell it was male because of the horn on his head) food still uneaten. When he got home the tortoise, now dubbed Liam, still had his head in his shell, but his food was eaten. Natsu smiled and refilled the dish, hoping the tortoise would now come out, but it didn't. He sighed, wondering what was wrong.

* * *

This continued for a week. The turtle would stay in his shell whenever Natsu was around, and eat during the day when Natsu was at the guild. What was worse, his other animals were becoming afraid of him. Natsu was glad their team had decided to take a couple weeks break; he wanted to deal with this before they had to leave on another job.

At this point Natsu was tempted to take his pets to one of the so-called "animal whisperers" in the city. But they were ridiculously expensive; and not usually true animal whisperers. Not to mention the fact Natsu hadn't been on a job in a while, and was running low on money.

_I could take them to the guild… Mirajane could transform and talk to them… But will they laugh at me? But this is about my animals. I want to make sure that they will be okay. So f_ them if they think it's stupid!_

* * *

So Natsu decided to take the animals to the guild. He hired a horse and cart to transport them; thirteen cats, two rabbits, a tortoise, three birds, an owl, two hamsters and two guinea pigs weren't easy to carry. Normally he could have trusted the cats to follow him, but now they were afraid of him. He'd had to stop letting them out, for fear they would run away.

The day he was to take the animals to the guild, Natsu had to hunt down and drag out his cats and put them in carrying cases. The little birds would stay in their cages as would the other small animals. When the cart arrived that morning the driver looked on dubiously as Natsu loaded his animals and tethered Chetka to the side of the cart.

"That it?" he asked in a gruff voice when Natsu finished loading his animals and started to climb in with Happy.

"Yeah."

"Where to?"

"Fairy Tail Guild."

The man grunted and clucked to his horse and the cart rolled away, towards the guild, toward Natsu's friends.

He certainly received many strange looks as he passed by with his rolling menagerie. Fairy Tail came into view all too soon. "Here we are, sir." The coach driver said as he stopped the horse.

"Thanks." Natsu paid the man and began to unload. Once all the animals were out the driver nodded before leaving. Natsu then moved the cages into the guild. He was there early, and only few other mages had arrived, including the rest of Team Natsu. They raised their heads to see with a cat carrier in one hand and an owl tether (with an owl attached) in the other. He silently set down the cat carrier and tethered Chetka to a table. He then went back outside to get more animals.

_They (the people) were so quiet, kind of like Happy was acting this morning… I wonder why?_

When all the animals were safely inside the guild Natsu asked if Mirajane was here yet. Elfman said that she wasn't, but would be there soon. Natsu sighed and settled down to wait.

"Natsu? You needed me?" Mirajane sounded confused

"Yeah." He noticed that a crowd had gathered around the animals "These are my pets and they have been afraid of me since I found Liam." At this Natsu gestured to the tortoise, hiding in his shell. "He was afraid of me when I first got him and a few days after that my other animals started to become afraid of me. I was wondering if you could transform and talk to them."

"Sure!" Mira answered cheerfully. A moment later she was a purple and pink tortoise, talking to Liam. Several minutes later it's head turned back to that of Mira's. "Apparently Liam's previous owner would abuse him. He also had pink hair, which might be a reason that he was particularly afraid of you. Liam also spread the message to the other animals. They all know you're just fine now, though."

"Poor Liam. I'm sorry little guy…" Natsu murmured

Mira turned back human, and it seemed that most people in guild were suppressing smiles. Natsu glared at them. "Gotta problem?" he asked grumpily.

This made everyone laugh. "HEY! I can like animals if I want to! It's nothing to laugh about!" This made everyone laugh harder. Finally Erza managed to choke something out.

"You know- "giggle" we've known for a while-"giggle "Happy told us." she managed before falling back into laughter.

And that, friends, is how Happy Dragneel died. JK, he got a scolding and hid behind Lucy's leg. "WHY DID YOU DO THAT?"

Cowering behind Lucy, Happy answered in a quivering voice: "The day a couple months ago when you were sick? I came to the guild to let people know why you weren't here?" Natsu nodded. "I couldn't figure how to tell people not to visit you, so I told them the real reason you didn't want any visitors."

Several people nodded, in support of Happy's story. One brave soul said "We just thought it was funny how defensive you were getting about it, when we hadn't said a word."

Natsu stood silently for a long time, and then broke down laughing. "What an idiot I was! Of course my friends wouldn't laugh at me for something like that!"

"Damn straight." Gray grinned "You're still an idiot though."

"What was that, Slanty Eyes?"

"I said you're an idiot, Flame Face."

"This. Is. War."

The two started to fight, but Erza interfered and easily walloped the both of them.

AN:* Li Qi means beautiful autumn in chinese~ The cats are modeled after mine and a friend's. Emma, Lucy and Cooper are a friend's, the five kittens we foster parented, and the other five are mine :D. The rabbit's names are the same as a friend's (not the colors, I didn't know them XD) the colors and names of the guinea pigs are also modeled after friends. Umm… I apologize if any of the info about caring for some of the animals is wrong~ I only know how to take of cats and horses -_-". the owl care info I learned from a book about a woman who owned an owl. Thanks for reading! :)Review or I shall have a talk with Erza. :D


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